Delco residents join fight against Ebola outbreak

In this photo taken on Saturday, July 26, Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, right, demonstrates to people how to wash their hands properly in order to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus, during Independence Day celebrations in the city of Monrovia, Liberia. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)

Local West African immigrants are rallying to finance medical supplies needed to help contain the Ebola outbreak that has traumatized their native countries.

The outbreak rapidly has spread throughout portions of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, killing at least 887 people. The World Health Organization announced Friday that the disease is moving faster than control efforts.

“It’s very panicking and traumatizing,” said the Rev. Solomon M. Muin, the secretary general for the Liberia Ministers Association of the Delaware Valley. “We are all connected to people back in Liberia.”

Local natives are scrambling to raise the money necessary to send medical supplies into West Africa, where inadequate medical equipment is contributing to the spread of the disease.

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The Liberia Ministers Association of Delaware Valley, based in East Lansdowne, is coordinating a prayer service Sunday at the Victory Harvest Fellowship International Church in West Philadelphia to mobilize resources. The service will follow three days of prayer and fasting being held at the church Wednesday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“We are praying that a solution to this Ebola problem will be found in the immediate future so that our people won’t have to fear,” Muin said.

Doctors and health workers treating the Ebola victims are among the most vulnerable to develop the disease, which is only transmitted through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, blood, vomit, sweat or feces. It is not an airborne disease.

Many sick patients reportedly have refused to check into isolation centers, leading to the infection of family members and caretakers. The fatality rate has been about 60 percent.

Dahn Dennis, president of the Liberian Association of Pennsylvania, said many Liberians initially refused to believe the rash of illness was Ebola, which begins with flu-like symptoms before advancing to include severe diarrhea and bleeding from circulatory collapse. He said Liberians were slow to respond to advised precautions.

“People are practicing that now, avoiding handshakes and hugs and all of that stuff,” Dennis said. “The education is working.”

The Liberian Association of Pennsylvania, based in Philadelphia, also is trying to raise funds to transport medical gloves, protective suits, buckets and bleach that health workers need in West Africa.

Between 15,000 and 30,000 Liberian natives live in Pennsylvania, including many in Upper Darby and Yeadon, Dennis said. Because of the outbreak, they are unable to return home to sympathize with family members and give proper burials to loved ones lost to Ebola. Many airliners have suspended flights to affected countries, he said.

“We are asking the public to help us fight this deadly virus that is going on in our country right now,” Dennis said.

A group dubbed “All Hands on Deck — Kick Ebola Out of Sierra Leone” formed last week at Faith Wesleyan Church in Darby to determine ways to support their native country.

Fatima Soloaku said the group held a T-shirt sale Sunday to raise funding to purchase medical supplies to be sent to Sierra Leone through the embassy. She said they are meeting again Wednesday to brainstorm more fundraising ideas.

She called the crisis in Sierra Leone “devastating,” urging people to donate money and supplies needed to halt the outbreak’s advancement.

“We need money,” Soloaku said. “We need donations.”

The outbreak also has affected a pair of American health workers serving in Liberia and Patrick Sawyer, an American man of Liberian descent who died in Nigeria. Health worker Nancy Writebol is expected to be transported today to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where fellow health worker Dr. Kent Brantly was taken Saturday. A patient at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York was being tested for Ebola Monday afternoon, though officials said he is ‘unlikely’ to have the virus.

Treating the health workers in Atlanta has led some to fear an Ebola outbreak in the United States, though public health officials insist an outbreak is unlikely.

Pennsylvania Physician General Carrie DeLone said the risk of an outbreak is “extremely low and close to nonexistent.”

“I can’t emphasize that enough,” DeLone said.” Pennsylvania and all of the United States have excellent surveillance and emergency systems to combat spread of infectious diseases.”

John Goldman, an infectious disease expert at PinnacleHealth in Harrisburg, said the best way for health officials to differentiate between common diseases like influenza and Ebola — which begins with similar symptoms — is to inquire about a patient’s recent travel history.

“There has never been a case of Ebola in this country,” Goldman said. “Right now, the biggest factor that would tip you off that someone might have this disease is they’ve gone to an area where the outbreak is occurring.”